Weirdo (32 page)

He turned, indicating the table. “I’m sure he won’t keep you waiting long, half an hour tops, he reckoned,” he said. “In the meantime, I took the liberty of ordering myself a drink. Would you care to join me?”

“Thanks.” Francesca nodded politely, sat herself down at the side of the table with the empty glass, taking in the label
on the bottle of red as she did so. It flashed through her mind whether Rivett already knew what she liked drinking – and if so, how he had found that out. From the moment he’d stepped out from behind the door, she’d realised that his presence here was no accident.

“Good, good,” he followed her gaze, lifted the bottle up.

“Only,” she put her hand over her glass, “unfortunately, I came here in my car. I don’t think I should risk it, do you? Especially not in front of a member of the constabulary,” she smiled sweetly. “Could you order me a mineral water instead?”

“Of course.” Rivett refilled his own glass, then leaned back in his seat, pressing a little button on the wall next to his right hand, summoning another dapper little man in a white jacket and black bow tie, who took her order with a bow and shut the door behind him.

“You know,” said Rivett as the waiter departed, “that I’m no longer an official member of the constabulary, don’t you? So,” he leaned forward conspiratorially, nodding back towards the wine, “we don’t have to play by the normal rules.”

Looking at his pointed yellow teeth, Francesca fought down a feeling of revulsion that was stronger even than the first jolt of fear she had got from seeing him emerge.

“Is that why the DCI sent you?” she said.

* * *

As she came out of her front door, Noj wasn’t sure which was the right direction to take. She stopped for a moment, her eyes travelling around the square. Her instincts told her that Sean was close. Maybe he had gone back to Swing’s? Yes, that felt right.

As she hurried across the street, she heard the distant sound of dogs barking.

* * *

“I had an interesting chat with Mrs Linguard today,” said Sean, “up at your old school. She told me you were in with a pretty bad crowd yourself at one point, and that you wouldn’t mind admitting it.”

Smollet gave a smile that was intended to look rueful. “She mean Shane Rowlands and Neal Reeder, the village idiots of Ernemouth High. She’s right, they were bad lads – even the special class kids were scared of Rowlands. You could say he were the ringleader.”

Smollet nodded to himself as his memory spooled back. “I s’pose I got swept along with it, you know, the folly of youth. But fortunately, I seen the error of my ways. I washed my hands of them at the start of the fifth year. Didn’t have no more to do with them until I was in uniform,” he started to smile again, “and they tried to rob a Post Office in the March of ’89. First people I ever nicked, Rowlands and Reeder.”

He was about to say something else, when a light flashing on his telephone caught Smollet’s attention. He frowned. He had given orders that he was not to be disturbed.

“Excuse me one moment,” he said, lifting the receiver.

* * *

Mr Pearson’s eyes narrowed as he took in the information on the fax and his stomach hollowed. Old, bad memories suddenly crowded in.

“Oh, dear God,” he said. “I hope this don’t mean what I think it do. Not again …”

Digby, who had been standing in the doorway, staring at him while he was reading, gave a loud bark. In the next room, Lewie whined and rolled out of the basket.

* * *

Rivett chuckled. “Now that’s a leading question,” he said. He raised his glass, studied Francesca over the rim of it. “You think he wants me to soften you up before the interview, do you?”

Before she could reply, the waiter came back with Francesca’s bottle of water. She watched him break the seal, then pour the bubbling liquid into her glass, trying to still the effervescence in her stomach, to think one question ahead. Telling herself she had dealt with his kind before, dirty old men in every newsroom she’d ever worked in. That he wasn’t any different.

She kept the smile fixed on her face as the waiter bowed again and left them.

“Why?” she said. “What kind of interview did you think it was going to be?” She took a sip of water, parrying his stare, raising her own eyebrows in what she hoped looked like amusement. “I think your press officer must have got a bit over-excited. This is what we call in our trade a puff piece. I’m sure you know what that means, Mr Rivett. A profile of an upstanding member of the community, what they’ve gained from their time in Ernemouth and what they’re giving back.”

“Is that right?” Rivett put his hand inside his jacket, pulled out a box of slim cigars and a long, thin, gold lighter. “Mind if I …?” he asked.

“Not at all,” said Francesca.

“Thanks,” he said, clicking the lighter into a flame. The end of the cigar crackled as it ignited, turning a glowing red. Rivett inhaled, blew out a plume of smoke.

“Go on,” he said. “What’s he giving back to this fine old town of ours, then?”

“Well,” she said, “I know DCI Smollet is keen on maintaining links with his old school. I’m assuming his motivation is to
set a good example to the pupils of Ernemouth High, that they could follow in his footsteps if they work hard enough.”

“Very noble,” said Rivett. “So what give you the idea for that?”

“You know,” Francesca put on a serious face, leaned forwards into his smoke, “one of the things that bothers me the most about society today is the breakdown of the family. You would probably know more about this than I do,” she looked at him earnestly, “but so many boys today are growing up without a father, or even a decent father figure. It’s no wonder there’s been such a rise in youth crime and anti-social behaviour. They don’t have any positive male role models, do they?”

Rivett nodded. “Sad but true, Miss Ryman, sad but true. We have lived through godless times,” he said, his countenance becoming grave, in a mirror of her own, “and now we reap what we have sown.”

* * *

“Jason,” said Smollet, still looking at Sean, “I thought I told you …”

Whoever was on the end of the line cut him off mid-sentence. Sean couldn’t hear the caller, but as Smollet ducked his head, eyes sweeping down to the desktop, he guessed that this was unexpected news being relayed. Either that, or a prearranged decoy.

“You what?” said Smollet, frowning. “Slow down a minute, Jason, you in’t making no sense.” He looked back up at Sean for a second, mouthed the word “sorry”.

“Who?” he said, sounding astonished. “What?
My
orders? I don’t know nothing about it …”

His eyes shifted focus, so that he now appeared to be looking straight through Sean at the wall behind. That muscle
beneath his eye began to flicker again.

“Enough, Jason,” he snapped. “I’ll be right down.”

He replaced the receiver, staring down at it with a look of disbelief. Then, gathering himself swiftly together, he looked back up at Sean.

“I’m ever so sorry, Mr Ward,” he said. “But I’m going to have to leave it here for now. Duty calls.” He pushed his seat back, got to his feet. “We’ll continue tomorrow morning,” he looked down at his wristwatch. “Nine-thirty all right with you?”

Sean reached for his Dictaphone, put it back into his bag. “OK,” he said. “Is …”

“Now I’m afraid I’m gonna have to ask you to leave,” the tension emanating from the DCI was palpable as he walked round the desk and opened the door before Sean even had chance to stand up. “I got something urgent to attend to.”

* * *

“So,” said Francesca, not expecting this burst of Old Testament thinking that so closely resembled her own thoughts, noticing that Rivett’s eyes had come to rest on the pendant around her neck as he spoke. “I think what DCI Smollet is doing at his old school sets a good example. I’m going to make it the first part of a series, a weekly thing.”

“Oh yeah?” Rivett’s eyes shifted back up to meet hers. “Who else you got lined up for it, then?”

“A community youth leader, a scout master, a stay-at-home dad,” Francesca reeled off a list of the role models she thought would probably irritate Rivett the most. But then, as she took a breath to say the next thing that came to mind, a jolt of fear ran through her.

What if he already knew?

As she thought it, the smile returned to the old detective’s face, and he leaned back in his chair. “A male teacher, I would have thought,” he said. “There in’t too many of them left, these days, are there? Or so I hear …”

* * *

“Thanks again, Mr Ward,” Smollet hurried Sean towards the door of the station, holding it open for him. “Nine-thirty then.”

“Nine-thirty,” repeated Sean as the door swung shut behind him.

He stood for a moment on the top of the steps, watching Smollet hurry away across the foyer, nod to the copper on the front desk and then disappear through a door behind it. Then his mobile phone began to ring.

* * *

Francesca gave a start as someone rapped on the door, spilling some of the water out of her glass as her hand jerked upwards.

Rivett snapped his head round impatiently. “Yes?” he demanded.

The waiter stood in the doorway. “Sorry to disturb you again, sir,” he said, “but you’re wanted on the phone. He said to say it was about Eric. And that it was urgent.”

* * *

“Hello?” said Sean. The number that flashed up was not one he recognised.

“Is that Sean Ward?” a man with a Norfolk accent, a hesitant delivery.

“That’s right,” said Sean, “who’s calling?”

“Oh, well, you don’t know me, but my daughter asked me to ring you. Francesca Ryman. I got some information for you she said would be important.”

Philip Pearson
, thought Sean. “What’s that then?” he said, starting to walk down the steps, away from the station, back to his car.

“Well,” the other man said, “if I’m reading this right, I think she’s about to put herself in some serious trouble. Do you mind me asking who you are first?”

“Hold on one second,” said Sean, picking up his pace, rummaging for his key in his pocket and pressing unlock. The lights flashed on his car. “I just want to get to a place where no one else can hear me,” he explained. He opened the door, slid inside throwing his bag down on the passenger seat beside him, and glancing up into the rear-view mirror as he slammed the door shut again.

“Sorry about that, sir,” he said. “I’m a private detective, working for a London QC.”

“A detective?” Mr Pearson sounded puzzled.

“I’ve been sent here to work on a cold case,” said Sean, “and your daughter’s been giving me a hand with it.”

“Don’t tell me,” Mr Pearson said, “that’s something to do with Corrine Woodrow?”

His voice was drowned out by a cacophony of barking.

* * *

“I won’t be long,” said Rivett, standing up and crushing out his cigar in the ashtray. “Don’t go anywhere.”

As soon as the door shut behind him, Francesca saw again in her mind that terse expression on Pat’s face as she’d passed her desk, heard that muttered comment of
suppressed rage, before she forwarded the call from the police press office …

Replayed the caller’s voice in her mind. She was sure of it now. The “press officer” she’d spoken to was actually Rivett.

Feeling panic welling in her chest, she pulled herself into her coat and grabbed hold of her bag. Then she realised – she could not simply leave by the door she’d come through. Rivett, or one of those dapper men, would see her, make some smooth excuse to keep her here. Her heart hammering in her chest, she pulled back the red velvet curtains.

* * *

“Mr Pearson?” In the rear-view mirror, Sean saw movement in the station.

“Sorry about that,” Francesca’s father came back on the line. “Just had to shut the dogs in the other room. They’ve been giving me gyp all night. Right now, I don’t know what the pair of you have been up to, but Frannie said I had to trust her on this, so I hope you know what you’re doing. I got a load of faxes through from Frannie’s ex-husband, Ross. He’s been doing some kind of company search for her, and there’s a name on here I don’t much like the look of. Leonard Rivett,” he said. “It say here that he and Dale Smollet are partners in Leisure Beach Industries Inc of Ernemouth …”

In the rear-view mirror, Sean saw Smollet remonstrating with another man, a uniform of about his own age. Smollet was red in the face, shouting and waving his arms.

“… and have been since the March of 1989. Do that mean anything to you?”

Sean watched Smollet open the station door and run down the steps. It took him a second to process everything that Mr
Pearson had just said to him and realise that the man was expecting an answer.

“Yes,” he said, watching Smollet sweep straight past him, heading towards a silver Audi TT, its lights flashing with an electronic bleep as he keyed it open. “Yes, it explains a lot, Mr Pearson, thank you for telling me. Where is Francesca now, do you know?”

“She rung about half an hour ago,” said Mr Pearson, “said she was going to be late back this evening. But she didn’t say why. If you’ve put her in any danger …”

“Maybe she’s left me a message,” said Sean, watching the Audi’s headlights come on, Smollet reversing past him without registering him, manoeuvring out of the car park.

“Well, would you mind checking?” said Mr Pearson. “Only that in’t just the dogs that have got the wind up ’em tonight.”

“Course,” said Sean, “I’ll call you straight back soon as I have.”

Smollet was pulling into the road as Sean got the first of his saved messages, the one from Noj, which he had to hold away from his ear, her voice was so loud.

“
Second message. Message recorded at eighteen-thirty,
” his phone informed him.

“
The monkey kindly agreed to finally meet me this evening,
” he heard Francesca say. “
I’m just about to do the interview now. Should be through by about half-seven, eight at the latest …
”

Sean looked down at the dashboard clock.

Eighteen-thirty
. When he himself had been interviewing Smollet. Here, in the station.

Which meant …
The organ grinder?